South Africa

Shaun Pollock dropped for some reason

42 year-old ginger snoreathon, Shaun Pollock, has been dropped from the South African Test team for the first time.

Rumours that South African coach, Mickey Arthur, said, ‘I can’t watch one more delivery from that freckled automaton,’ are probably true, although we haven’t heard it anywhere.

Pollock’s place is supposed to be going to Paul Harris, who’s a spinner, which really damages the credibility of this story. South Africa would never pick a spinner. He must be a middle-order batsman who bowls ‘a bit of spin’. He’s only got one first-class fifty to his name though. It’s all very odd.

Remember when Shaun Pollock was actually quick? You must be very old.

Another choketastic performance from South Africa

We’re not gloating. England rarely even give themselves a chance to choke.

No dramatic knock-outs for England. England exit tournaments quite serenely, moving from ‘performing badly’ to ‘up against it’ then ‘as good as out’ before finally reaching ‘qualification a mathematical impossibility’ – at which point they board a plane looking glum and making weak pronouncements about being ‘a young team’ to anyone who might be listening, which is nobody.

South Africa though? By jove do they know how to get knocked out. By JOVE.

The all-time classic example was the 1999 World Cup semi final against Australia. Next, in the 2003 World Cup, South Africa were set a rain-adjusted target to progress in a group match against Sri Lanka. They reached the score they believed was required and then blocked the final ball. Unfortunately, the score they were on was the score required for a tie – so they were knocked out.

Then there was yesterday’s performance. Even allowing for bowler-friendly conditions, India’s total of 153 was nothing special. However, South Africa generously sacrificed their entire top order instantly, falling to 31-5. At this point they kept it interesting by mounting a fightback and reaching 100. Then, true to form, they fell apart again, losing a further four wickets for just 11 runs.

South Africa failed even to reach the more crucial target of 126 which would have allowed them to remain in the competition on net run rate.

South Africa’s captain, Graeme Smith, was quick to pour scorn on the idea that South Africa had once again choked. He blamed the format of the competition, which isn’t as ludicrous as it sounds. South Africa have won all of their games bar this one, which is a better record than some of the other semi finalists. However, this was the match that counted.

You can’t blame the format for failing to reach 126 and you can’t claim you’re not chokers when every key match is characterised by an unexpectedly zesty lunge towards defeat.

South Africa choke in 1999 World Cup semi final against Australia

South Africa needed nine off the final over and Lance Klusener – by some way the best batsman in that tournament – belted the first two deliveries for four.

South Africa now needed one to win. The third ball went straight to a fielder, but Allan Donald was already half way down the pitch and would have been run out if Darren Lehmann had hit the stumps.

The fourth wasn’t much of a shot either, but Klusener said ‘yes’. Donald disagreed and didn’t move. As Klusener passed him, Donald realised he had to go, but it was too late. Donald was run out, South Africa were all out, the scores were tied and Australia progressed to the final thanks to an earlier win over South Africa.

If you’re not of a nervous disposition, you could watch the video. We’re neither Australian nor South African and it’s eight years later, but it’s still a little too much for us.

We’d have choked long before the final over.

Justin Kemp: attacking batsman

No headlining effort from us today.

World Cup player to watch, Justin Kemp, hadn’t done a great deal since South Africa’s first match, but yesterday he rediscovered runs. Or boundaries, at any rate.

89 off 56 balls is always handy, but when you’re chasing 154 it pretty much does the trick on its own. Kemp even had the gall to finish the match with a six. It’s what Twenty20′s all about. New Zealand might disagree.
Little did Kemp know, however, that he was merely warming-up the crowd for Yuvraj Singh’s six sixes in an over.

England march on – yes they do

To continue our superlative Twenty20 World Cup coverage in the manner that’s increasingly fitting…

England thrashed South Africa, easily chasing down an eminently reachable target and they certainly don’t need to win the next two games in order to stay in the competition.

Kevin Pietersen’s run out didn’t look this bad:

He certainly had a bat and he most definitely didn’t lose it after running straight into a more-than-visible Shaun Pollock in the middle of the pitch.

In another match, Brett Lee failed to take a hat trick when all three deliveries failed to result in a wicket.

Twenty20 World Cup starts with South African win

Another day, another cricket World Cup. We think this one’s likely to be better than the 50 over one though. Many of the things that were wrong with the 50 over World Cup don’t apply here.

It’s shorter, only lasting a couple of weeks. It’s only got the big teams really. Tickets are affordable, so there should be a crowd. Plus, everyone’s going mental for Twenty20 cricket on the whole. It might appeal to non-cricket fans. Or they might just be confused. Who knows?

Chris Gayle walloped the first international Twenty20 hundred, but still the West Indies lost the opening game. Herschelle Gibbs – like Gayle, a batsman who should love this format – hit 90 off 55 balls, but the real acceleration came from Justin Kemp with 46 not out off 22 balls.

Earlier this year we made Justin Kemp a World Cup player to watch. He did nothing. We’re sticking with him and all the other World Cup players to watch (even if they’re not appearing) for this tournament. We’re not selecting specialists.

Allan Donald preaches aggression

Allan Donald became England’s bowling coach at the start of summer. Today marks the fiftieth occasion when an England bowler has said something along the lines of: “AD’s just been telling us to go out there and be really aggressive.”

It was James Anderson on this occasion, but Ryan Sidebottom and Chris Tremlett have said pretty much the same thing at one time or another and we’re pretty sure someone else has as well, but we can’t be bothered looking for the quote. Is this the only thing that Allan Donald’s been telling these guys?

Who cares? It seems to be working. Allan Donald’s PHILOSOPHY OF RAGE is clearly the way forward.

Nicky Boje knows it’s the INDIAN Cricket League, right?

The Indian Cricket League is a 20 over league that’s being set up by Zee TV because they don’t have the rights to existing cricket. They’re throwing money at it and signing all sorts of people who are promptly being banned from ‘proper’ cricket in India and Pakistan.

One of the ‘big names’ is lamentable spinner who’s really a middle order batsman, Nicky Boje, formerly of South Africa.

Now Nicky Boje hasn’t actually been back to India in quite a few years because the police want to speak to him about allegations that he took money to underperform. We’ll once again ask the question: How is it physically possible for Nicky Boje to underperform? How can you tell?

Anyway, Nicky will presumably have to set foot on Indian soil for this venture. What’s going to happen?